Ye wei = a recent Chinese fad where exotic items are consumed with no regard for their rare, precious quality or the detrimental effect on the environment.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Best Music Writing of 2014 & more articles

Red Bull Music Academy was nice enough to let me do another year-end round up of "Best Music Journalism 2014" and while I'm always honored to get the chance to do this (previously for the good people at rockcritics.com, Blurt and PopMatters), I'm also always kind of let down by doing it too.

Mostly, that's because there's other articles I'd love to list but don't have the space for, not to mention that I won't listen anything from Perfect Sound Forever 'cause that would be favoritism (though I really think that ALL our writers there deserve props). Also, just like any year-end music round up, you always find out about great items after the fact and think 'how the hell did I miss that?' In that spirit, here's a number of other music articles I really liked from 2014.

(As a side note, I forgot to mention in the RBMA intro that another great source for rounding up music stories is SXSW Daily Chord.)

I notice that when I do these lists, some writers will say that they're a little let down that I didn't include them there. I understand that- all of us scribes need a pat on the back sometimes, especially since we usually don't get that kindness from readers, editors and peers. I always say that when you do see a good article, you should contact the writer/editor/publication to say so- that way, you'll not only boost the confidence of the writer to do more quality work but you might also convince the editor/pub to keep working with them. The next time you want to complain that there isn't any good music writing out there, why not be part of the solution instead? And if you're still not satisfied, why not write yourself?

As for 2015, I'm already starting to round up good articles. I know that they're gonna still be out there, no matter what the shape of the scribe biz is in.